The year is 1879. When thirteen-year-old Ruth Merritt Holbrook emerges from her family's burning estate, bloody and charred, but entirely numb--She makes headlines. Reporters believe she is deranged. They accuse her of having set the fire. All the h...
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The audacity of this man! He has arrived at my home without my permission carrying with him no less than a dozen white tulips. Where he got them is a mystery, as is his being here at all. I have refused to come down stairs and the flowers were subsequently brought to me by a bewildered, and yet thoroughly amused, Hanny.
"He has told me he will not leave until you speak to him. He has asked for a walk but is willing to settle for a chat in the parlor if you are opposed...?" She trailed off, waiting for my response.
"He will be waiting for quite a while."
"Come now, Merritt. He's just come for a stroll. I've left him quite lonely downstairs with only Mrs. Zanderfield for company and we both know she has the conversation skills of a disgruntled cat."
"It's terribly inappropriate."
"It is merely a walk."
I huffed and tried to think quickly, search for an excuse that she might accept, one that perhaps Desmott might accept. I settled on, "We have not even been formally introduced."
"No one objected when he arrived at St. Agatha's to retrieve you. You, my friend, are a special case. No need to cite propriety as an excuse, such an argument will not hold."
"I didn't ask to be a special case. I don't want to go on a walk with him. I am not even of walking age. I have not been brought into society, not publically. It is not right. If my mother were here she would object—"
It was Hanny's turn to sigh. "Perhaps, but she is regretfully not here—nor is Lizzie, whom I'm certain would be equally as austere. But you have been left with myself and Mrs. Zanderfield as your guardians for the day—aren't you the luckiest of girls?"
I pursed my lips and tried not to let the flippant way she spoke on my mother sting too much. It has been three years worth of suppressing my heartache with thoughts of my own protection. I never had the time to mourn before and now the loss is far enough from me that it would be silly to weep for it now.
"I will not go." I whispered. "Not today."
"Then tomorrow?"
I thought of Rosalie Gressil, almost sitting in his lap, the way his eyes had scanned her body. That odd sense of anger rose up in me, not hurt, but a sort of desire that bordered on possessiveness. I looked towards the door and said simply, "No."
She perched on the edge of my bed, flouncy her skirts about her as she did. "What can it hurt to at least speak to him?"
"What can it help?"
"He is an eligible bachelor."
"And I am an ineligible bachelorette."
"How so? No man has taken your affections."
"I am not in society."
"That does not matter." Hanny argued, "Not now. Not with who you are."
"But it should matter to Mr. Desmott. He is a gentleman, in charge of a theater and certainly capable of acquiring a finer lady than myself."
